


Basic Tenets (X-Files Drabbles)

by pinebluffvariant



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-07
Updated: 2015-12-11
Packaged: 2018-04-19 14:43:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 21
Words: 6,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4750154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinebluffvariant/pseuds/pinebluffvariant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is an ongoing series of X-Files drabbles, some in response to prompts, others not. Ratings and spoilers vary: reader discretion is advised.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Democracy

Mulder hasn’t voted in a general election since 1996.

In 2000, he was dead.

In 2004, he and Scully were living, briefly but deliriously happily, in a Tennessee mountain town under the unlikely moniker, the Exleys. No papers, just stories.

In 2008, he stared at his new drivers license, in his own name and with an expiration date in 2018, and went back to bed in a cloud of mixed relief and bitterness.

In 2012, he wasn’t even sure who the candidates were. He’d been busy preparing. Scully held out her hand to him, asked him to come along, and he made some excuse and shut the door tight. A few months later she was gone.

Now 2016 is approaching and he still wonders, daily, whether any of them will make it that far.  
\---------

Scully always votes. Whenever she is free. She knows it’s wishful thinking but it’s important to her: she refuses to give up control over this, too, over her keep-clapping-Wendy participation in a nominally democratic process.

She votes at all levels. Federal, state, governor, AG, county, school board. She wants William to come home to a school system that functions, when he- if he- no, no. Yes.

Every two years, she allows herself these thoughts, deposits her ballots, walks calmly into the handicap bathroom of the senior center slash polling station, and hyperventilates for two minutes.

\------------------

Ms. Barnes, Will Van De Kamp’s government and civics teacher, sits behind her desk and leafs through Will’s paper. “Come in, Billy, and have a seat,” she says without looking up. Call me Will, please, he doesn’t say to her.

He sits. This is his fifth time in a teacher’s or principal’s office since he started at Rawlins Middle School. “I read your paper about the Department of Justice and the president’s power. This is pretty provocative stuff, Billy,” she tell him. “Have your mom and dad been telling you that all the branches of government lie to the American people?”

Will looks down at his scuffed sneakers and chews his lip. He realizes that he doesn’t care if he’s in trouble. He looks his teacher square in the eye, meets her curious - not angry - gaze. “No, Ms. Barnes. My mom and dad don’t talk about stuff like this at all. I just thought… I just think… I just think it’s important that people know the truth.”


	2. Wedding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (A prompt. Spoilers for X-Files season 10x06, My Struggle II - based on set reports from the last two days of filming.)

Hoover Plaza is noisy and chaotic except for Scully’s heart, which beats like a precise and even bass drum in her throat.

Scully’s wrestled Mulder out of Miller’s ridiculous Mustang and wrangled him into the back seat of her Explorer. She won’t let that punkass touch him again. 

Mulder’s stretched out across the plush leather, his head resting on top of her briefcase on the edge of the seat. She guards him like a lioness through the open car door, strokes his cheeks and soothes.

Her eyes flutter without focus between people and objects around them, when she feels Mulder’s weak, clammy fingers on her forearm. 

“Scully…,” he whispers weakly. “I just remembered something.”

“Ssssssh, Mulder, try not to talk.” 

He lifts his hand with great effort, places it on top of hers on his cheek. There’s a tiny spark in his glazed eyes.

“We have… an appointment on Monday.”

“We do.” She wants to distract him, keep him quiet, save his strength, but he’s right. They have an appointment on Monday. Two pm at the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, fourth floor all the way down the hall. They’ve requested Judge Johnson, the husband of one of her colleagues at GW.

“My suit. It’s at the cleaners on Nineteenth and K.”

“Try not to talk, Mulder, okay?” Her hands ruffle his hair: the laying on of hands has no healing effect but she’ll take anything at this point.

“Rings are in the… glove compartment.” He leans into her touch and his eyelids flutter closed. He swallows weakly, breathes heavily but deeply. Good sign.

“MILLER.” Scully yells into the air, rifling through her coat pocket. “GET OVER HERE.”

The punk shows up seconds later, ready to take orders like a goddamn puppy. “I know things are hectic but I need you to do me a favor. Here are Mulder’s car keys. Silver Camry, it’s parked at the Hoover. There’s a ring box in the glove compartment. Then go to the dry cleaners on Nineteenth and K, get his suit. Bring these things to our office. TONIGHT.”

“Yes, Agent Scully.” That’s damn right, yes. They have an appointment on Monday. Whatever's going down is not going to stop them.


	3. Snow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (A prompt.)

Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. It sure ain’t Florida. It’s January: they’re on the run. They stop for a breather here, in this reindeer sweater and hot cocoa city cradled in a valley between majestic mountains, covered in a blanket of snow.

Mulder has splurged on LL Bean duck boots for both of them - a true Yankee - but they’re no match for the ice underneath the white clouds on the ground.

In their room, Scully ices and massages his twisted ankle in her lap as he slumps back on the bed, dozing with Tylenol PM in his system.

Before sleep claims him, he hears her tuneless singing:

“d'Alene, d'Alene, d'Alene, d'Aleeeene, I’m begging you, please don’t take my man…”


	4. March 21st 2011

There is a party in the Mulder-Scully household. Dana sets the small table on the front porch with their nicer napkins and silverware, puts down cushions on the rickety wicker chairs, and lights some citronella candles. Dusk is approaching rapidly.

Mulder has two plates of pasta in his hands and a bottle of wine squeezed under his arm. He pushes open the screen door with his hip and shimmies outside. He tips his chin up, encouraging Dana to take the corkscrew from between his teeth. “Thank you,” he says and wiggles his jaw into a comfortable position again.

They sit and eat in silence, toast with their wine. When their meal is done and the sun has set, Dana leans back, closes her eyes, and sends out a message to the stars. “Happy birthday, sweet Will.”

“I’ll take you to Dinosaur Land next weekend,” Mulder sighs beside her, and sniffles.


	5. pet names (explicit; prompt)

Their third night together finds them in her bed, a little drunk on too-fine wine. With bordeaux still on her lips, she eases him out of his clothes and closes her mouth around his straining cock. Each vein and textural nuance plays against her tongue, lips and teeth. He’s exquisitely human.

His fist knots into her hair, holds her still as he moves his hips gently against her waiting mouth. “Baby,” he breathes, “oh fuck, baby, yeah.” She’s never known such power.

***

There’s been silence between them before, she thinks, but never like this. She’s splayed out on their bed, he’s hunched on his knees on the floor, his soft, long hair feathers against her thighs as his mouth works her clit. Neither of them is ready, and it hurts.

She doesn’t know why, but it just slips from her lips: “Fox, stop.” He freezes. His eyes seek hers, confused, dark, and hurting. He reaches for her hand that rests on her stomach, but she bats his fingers away. This is their last night together.


	6. Dreamcatcher (prompt)

Mulder and Scully in an SUV on a long, straight, dusty Texas highway, and no air conditioner. Scully’s Clubmaster knockoffs barely shield her from the oppressive sun. She wishes she hadn’t been too good for that Y’ALL hat back at the gas station in Lubbock.

They’ve been in this exact situation more times than they’ve been in bed together. This time, the shady pharmaceutical CEO turns out to have been plagued by seizures and paranoia rather than her husband’s ghost.

Mulder’s callused fingers slide with a delicious hiss across the wood of the steering wheel. KTXT 88.1, Texas Tech’s finest student radio station, asserts its indie cred over and over. Three hours of residual teenage angst with no interruptions. Radiohead, Social Distortion, an old Suzanne Vega. Mulder hums tunelessly and taps his fingertips against his knee.

“Mulder, I’m baking. Can I borrow your hat?” She doesn’t wait for a response, just grabs it by the brim and deposits his cap, green with a crudely embroidered dreamcatcher on the front, on her head. It’s instant relief.

“Oh,” he smiles, “sure, of course, Dr. ‘I don’t agree with wearing symbols of cultral appropriation’, no problem.” She’s already pulled the bill over her eyes and tuned him out.

Scully jerks awake. Next to her, Mulder’s nodding his head in time to one of those contemporary bluegrass songs he likes precisely because he’s a clueless Yankee, banjo and fiddle and crude lyrics. 

His low voice rumbles: _“When I’m not drinkin’, I’m thinkin’ ‘bout drinkin’, when I’m not thinkin’, I’m drinkin’ ‘bout yoooooooou.”_ He casts a glance her way and winks. _“I’m drinkin’ ‘bout yooooooou.”_


	7. Favorite Drinks (prompt)

**February 23, 2000**

Scully comes back from the ladies room to a gift box on her seat at the bar. “What’s this?”

“Oh, what, that? I just remembered it’s your birthday, Scully. This was in my stash.”

She tries to contain herself, not snatch up the gift and shake it. Two can play this game. “You have a gift stash.”

“Something for every occasion. Some of them are material, like this-” Mulder makes a noncommittal motion at the box, “- and others are more… experience oriented.”

He gets up, cocky as hell, and heads to the men’s room. One of the experience gifts for this year is apparently a nice long look at that fine ass of his. Soon, she’ll finally unwrap it.

When he gets back, she’s fiddling with a salt shaker; the bartender brings a plate of lemons.

“Hold out your hand.” He does. “Palm up.” He does.

The bartender emerges again with a small tray of shots. Four of them. Scully grabs Mulder’s wrist, brings it to her lips, and licks the pulse there. His eyes widen and she declares victory as she pours salt onto his skin. The spark between them clicks, zaps, ignites. She swipes her tongue across his salty soft wrist, slams her first tequila, and finishes with a puckery lemon slice between her teeth. She stifles a groan. Mulder looks shell shocked. He licks his lips.

“Cheers, Mulder. Thanks for remembering. Shall I open my gift now or later?” Her hand comes to rest on his leg.


	8. Ready For This

“Are you ready for this, Scully?” he says quietly with wet eyes.

“I don’t know that there’s a choice.”

He mouths ‘okay’. It’s clear he has misunderstood her.

She turns her back, takes a deep breath, and walks away from him for what she knows is the very last time.

Later, in the shower, her hands shake and her mind reels. What now? She’s built a life with great care and precision these past few years, allowed nothing in, allowed nothing out. And now she’s here. She surprises herself, imagines herself invading her own fortress, sword and shield colliding violently, both her.

She’s never been so ready to destroy herself.

There is a knock. She goes to the door of her cream-colored condo wearing a cream-colored silk robe. She knows what’s behind that door but checks the peep hole anyway.

He’s clean shaven so she can see the flush of his cheeks, a perfect counterpoint to the green storm brewing and churning in his eyes. He squirms standing there in front of her door and again she knows he’s misunderstood.

She swings the door open and colors explode everywhere all over the hall, all over the carpet at her feet, everywhere inside her. The storm hits her square in the chest but she’s an ocean girl, she knows to move with the force of the wave.

“There you are,” she says and steps back to let him in. “I was beginning to wonder.“


	9. Ballpark Estimate

The sky burns, an orange floodlight. It’s time to gather his things and head out. The three of them have spent two years preparing, just in case, but he wishes they’d had more notice.

“I’m sorry we missed so much time,” Will says.

On the concrete floor, by the dying fire, his mother and father are huddled together. He touches their cold bodies, pats their pockets for a spare knife and matches. Will places his father’s glasses on his face and his mother’s cross around his neck.

It doesn’t matter, but the original estimate wasn’t that far off. It does happen on December 22nd. The year is 2019.


	10. No Vacancy! Free HBO!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Rain King ficlet.

Well, that escalated quickly. In the space of one day, she had flown to Kroner, KS, got drenched, listened to the ramblings of an obviously drunk moron and grifter, been called something like “the little wife” AGAIN by a bunch of local TV schmucks, listened to Mulder’s… who even knows what kind of half-baked garbage came out of his pouty goddamn mouth, A COW, and then some other stuff until there she stood in her motel room, looking at the contents of her partner’s suitcase spread out all over her bed. 

His expensive dress socks and silk tie were tangled up, lapping sensuously at the hem of her discarded suit jacket. She felt a pang rush straight to her core, and stomped her feet to shake it off. _Dana, honestly, just because this is the most intimacy you’ve had in months, with ANYONE, doesn’t mean you have to acknowledge it. It’s his SOCKS._

The TV was on mute, Martin Sheen silently infiltrating Marlon Brando’s horror compound in the crescendo of Apocalypse Now. A man consumed by madness, not sure why he’s doing it or if it’s right. _Welcome to my life, Mr. Sheen. The water’s fine._

No, that wasn’t fair.

Mulder emerged from the steamy bathroom, a towel around his hips. “Oh! Sorry, I didn’t realize you were back.” He shifted on his feet, going for a t-shirt and almost losing the towel in the process. “Sorry, uh, sorry.”

“It’s okay.” She gulped down the slight disappointment of his successful towel rescue. He padded back into the bathroom, t-shirt and sweatpants clutched a little too tightly in his fist.

Later they sat on her bed, clothes back in their proper place - apart, not mingled together - watching the credits and drinking ginger ales from the vending machine. His socked foot nudged hers. Oh great, now he’d want to cuddle.

Jim Morrison mumbled on about The End. _It’s not, Jim, it’s really not,_ she thought.


	11. a seven minute mile

How long has it been since you ran a six and a half minute mile, Mulder? 

Easily? Probably Quantico. With effort? May of 2000. You felt so light all the time. It was probably the sex.

Age isn’t the only thing that slows you down. Looking over your shoulder does, not to mention, well, being dead. Losing your family. Losing your son. Losing your life. It’s really cramped your running style.

But here you are. The sun is bright, the gate is shut tight, and the realtor insists that this is a seven-acre property. It’s a little swampy, but you’ll be careful. Don’t fall down any holes.

Let’s try for a seven minute mile today. Let’s ease into this.

*****

These are the things Mulder will remember from their second day in the house. Scully sipping on a cold drink. Scully’s ten little red-painted toes, wiggling in a pair of flip flops as she reclines on the front stoop. Scully’s little legs in a pair of black shorts, so smooth against the rough, untreated wood of the steps. It’ll be his job to fix this deck.

He collapses on his in the unkempt grass in front of her, huffing and grinning. 

“Hey,” he manages to wheeze. “Gimme a minute.” He blinks the sweat into his eyes. His whole body stings. It’s good.

Her little toes nudge his hip and he opens his eyes to her smirking above him.

“Good run?”

He gives her the thumbs up, laughter bubbling up in his burning throat. She laughs as he shows her his palm. Five fingers for five miles.

She crouches before him and whoa - licks the side of his face. “Mm. Salty. Need to replace those electrolytes, Mr. Gebreselassie.”

Oh no, you should have seen this coming, he thinks as she stands up and tosses a glass of iced tea in his face.


	12. Lace

“Open your gift.”

She emerges from the bathroom, fluffy robe cinched snugly around a tiny waist, toothbrush hanging out of her mouth. “In a minute,” she mouths around the toothbrush. He waits patiently, pillows propping him up against the wall.

“Your lotions are all unscented,” she says with approval. “Don’t tell me you actually took my advice and read that dermatology paper on fragrance and intimate eczema.”

“Scully! I never… Open your gift.” He motions over to a flat box, roughly the size of a paperback book, that sits at the foot of the casually made bed.

“My VCR is in the shop, Mulder.”

“Would you stop it with the porn jokes? I didn’t buy a present for a teenage boy.”

Her gentle fingertips stroke the box, but he knows her too well two seconds later the deal is broken with glee and the contents revealed.

She holds up the delicate bra up against her torso, considers it for a minute. He watches her. It’s perfect. Black and silver lacy swirls against a nude, semi sheer base. No padding. The stern saleswoman at Bloomingdales said the lace pattern was cherry blossoms. It’s perfect.

“It’s very pretty,” she says, chin still to her chest as she inspects the tiny garment. “I didn’t expect this at all, thank you.” Now she’s looking up at him and he sees how it’ll look against her winter alabaster skin.

“What did you expect?” he asks.

“Well….” She trails off, and gestures at her chest, hands open and fingers curled, like they’re gripping something large.

“No,” he says and shakes his head. Her eyes soften. “Try it on.”

She opens the closet to stand at the full length mirror on the inside of the door, her back to him, and there she briefly puts the bundle of silky fabric on top of his laundry pile. She sheds her robe, letting it fall to the floor, and shrugs into the bra. It’s the only thing touching her skin, anywhere.

Her scapulae shift like wings as she brings her hands around back to close the clasp. She looks at him in the mirror. He watches her watch him and she watches him watching her.

She turns around and lets him look. With no bulky material at all, her breasts are natural, less contoured than usual under her suits. He bets they’ll feel so soft.

“This is lovely, thank you.” She smooths her hands across the cups. “Soft.”

“Only the softest things should ever touch your skin,” he says. “There’s something else in the box.”

“Something else?” She runs her hand down her belly and spreads her fingers against the unclothed patch there. She knows what he’s talking about.

“Just a little something.”

Later, at the movie theater, he hears nothing but the sound of his own breathing as he considers Scully’s thong-clad ass under those demure jeans. He’ll ask her later if the movie was any good.


	13. Three Is

Q: Does Mulder adore pregnant Scully?

A: He adores her and fears her all in the same breath. There are no words for the want and need and love that strikes him when he realizes he’s alive. There’s nothing else in this world anymore but her, but them.

He is afraid of her, of the power of her body and the power of her mind. He is afraid that where he’s failed before he’ll fail again. There cannot be a world, potential or actual, in which this can work. She’ll discover this impossibility, and soon, and she will walk away.

He learns a lesson one day, though. The lesson is to always trust her, fear or no. She watches him touch their child through her skin and her smile lets him know it’s the three of them now. 

Three is much more than just a sum. One is a suicide mission; two is a valiant effort. And three, three is an army.


	14. Pendulum

Q: Does Mulder like Scully's hair in a ponytail?

A: He does. It reminds him of her bangs curling and unruly in the damp forest, of nights spent crouched or reclined in dusty archives with nothing but diet soda and each other for company. It reminds him of the early mornings he’d catch her on her way to the Hoover gym, his gaze studiously on the bobbing of her ponytail, not on the sway of her hips. 

Every toss of her hair reminds him of the time he pushed her from behind into the kitchen counter on a Saturday morning. He yanked her hair on a whim; her groan and rough ‘yeah’ surprised and delighted him. He remembers her crosslegged on their bed, fingers playing with her long sleek hair, reading Philip Roth. How many times have his hands brushed a stray tendril out of her face?

And he remembers the sway of her hair, tied up hastily and fastened in frustration, as he watched her walk away from him, knowing she wasn’t coming right back. The soft, red silk swung like a pendulum, indecisive and taunting. Time ticked away with each back and forth, tick-tock, yes-no, stay-go.

When he sees Scully’s hair tied up, face free and focused, it reminds him of the fight in her, brewing there always, and her defiant demand for freedom. Even now, when the freedom she demands is from him.


	15. Boardwalk

On Santa Monica Pier, life moves leisurely, the lazy ferris wheel going round and round. Children’s laughter and skaters’ hollering fill the air and make it hum with life. The sand, the wind, the creak of wood beneath the feet of tanned Californians, all these things create a cacophony of stimuli inside Scully’s mind, the one that’s so used to one thing at a time: one scalpel, one interview, one glance shared with her partner. One case, one gunshot, one split-second decision to live or die or kill, one kiss. 

Lately she’s been wanting it all, all at once. If it wasn’t for work she’d still be in bed in DC, drinking seltzer and reading the days old paper while waiting for breakfast and a brand new casefile to be spread before her by a rumpled man radiating heat. 

In a fit of uncharacteristic openness, they’d talked about this not long ago: How much they’d both gone through lately. His injured brain, his having taken a life in Orange County, her having taken a life in her own apartment. The fear, the doubt, the irresistible urge to crawl inside each other. So they’d sat on Mulder’s couch one night, eating pizza in their underwear, and decided: Let’s slow down. We’ve earned it. 

_Do you remember Dr. Blockhead?_ Mulder asked. _I’ve got a PG-13 version for us. Magicians._ They left for Los Angeles soon after.

On her rickety bench, Scully turns her face up toward the sun and inhales deeply. The Pacific breeze swirls around her and warms her up. Her trance is broken by Mulder’s long fingers on her neck, scratching beneath her ear. She hears his chuckle and indulges him, cranes her neck to grant him better access. His touch is light and it plays over her skin like the breeze.

“Brought you a corn dog,” he drawls and she hears the smile in his voice before opening her eyes. His tie flaps and his ridiculous haircut stands spiky in the breeze and she is overcome with wanting to keep him close, keep him safe, and never let anybody touch his precious mind again.

She takes her corndog from him and watches him watch her in wonder when she takes a bite. She licks some crumbs off her upper lip. “Let’s walk,” she tells him simply. He stands and offers her his hand.

They walk arm in arm, two severe figures loosening up with every step on this carefree soil. There’s deja vu in the air.

“I always forget…” she starts and trails off.

He leans in close and puts his ear close to her mouth, causing him to trip a little where he hunches as they walk. “Hm?”

She kisses his ear, never breaking their stride. “The breeze.”

“What about it?”

“For all that I’m a Navy brat,” she says, “I think when it comes down to it, I’m from California. The breeze feels like home.”

“Got any good surfing stories?”

She leans on the railing above the waves and tells him about being a geek at school, about shooting BB guns with Bill, about her first kiss, about weird Navy brat etiquette and hierarchies, about her tantrums over wanting a guinea pig, about the creepy neighbors and panhandlers and the streamers on her bike.

He listens and absorbs her under his skin. The sun sets. Time stands still.


	16. Skyrim

Keisha’s sister’s place is only five blocks away from Will’s house, so he has an easy time concocting a plausible excuse for going over there on a school night.

“We’ll call you at ten!” Dad hollers distractedly from the kitchen when Will leaves. He and mom are hunched over a bunch of papers at the kitchen table, pens behind their ears and old people glasses perched on their noses.

They’re working late. They’re always working late, which usually works out in Will’s favor. He’s known as Ninja in his class, stealthily sneaking out all the time, always up for a late bike ride downtown. He’s pretty cool at school, even among all the kids with military and tech executive parents. His parents, he brags, are real big deals at the FBI.

He’s sixteen years old and he’s known his parents for three years. They don’t talk about it much, the confusing stretch of time when he found them, how it came to be that he stayed with them - first with dad and later also mom, when she came home - the months he heard them crying in their bedroom, talking about him. Will thinks about it sometimes, his father’s small voice, “oh my God”, the night the three of them first spent the night under the same roof.

One day he’ll ask them to fill in the gaps. He knows a lot already but sees the missing pieces in both their eyes sometimes, when he comes downstairs for breakfast and sees them sit too close, touching. He catches them and they stare at him in a way that makes him uncomfortable. Mom looks at dad like that sometimes, too, but with a different kind of sadness.

Will rides his bike over to Keisha’s sister’s apartment. She kisses his cheek at the door and they spend the next hour on the couch playing Skyrim. She sits a little too close. He should know what to do by now but doesn’t; he goes and grabs another Coke from the fridge, considers one of Nanna’s beers but decided against it. His parents are basically narcs, Keisha’s said before. It’s not worth it.

Keisha’s laughter rings through the room. Will’s thigh against hers burns a little. His phone chirps.

“Scully,” he answers when he sees who it is.

“Mr. Scully,” his mother’s steely voice says on the other end. “It’s eleven thirty, time to come home.”

Will gets up and walks to the bathroom, careful not to let Keisha see the front of his pants, embarrassed. “Hi, mom,” he says in his most soothing voice. “Can I stay a little longer, please?”

“Will, no, it’s a Thursday night. You haven’t done your coding assignment yet and I told y-”

“Give me the phone,” Will hears his father bark in the background and then: “William. Get home.”

“But dad-”

“No,” his father says in his usual monotone, which would make you think he had no feelings but Will obviously knows better, “come home now. Now, Will. Get home in the next half hour and I won’t tell your mother about what I found in your browser history, loverboy. We should talk, you and I.”

“Okay,” Will says with his heart in his throat and hangs up.

He hopes he’ll never have to have that talk. Mortified, he leaves the bathroom.


	17. Lobulus

Scully chews her pencil and dangles a suede pump from her toes. Underneath the desk, her shoe taps Mulder’s shin. He’s bouncing his knee, has been since he called her over to look at something and she pulled up a chair, crowded him and sat close. 

She spreads the array of reports and findings wide, fans them out across the desk, leaning into him, brushing her arm across his chest and catching a finger on his when she draws her hand back.

“Hmmm,” she makes sure to breathe from deep within her throat, like last night. “Look at this.” 

She taps her nail on a photo, one of many in the pile before them. He’s occupied elsewhere, trying unsubtly to edge his body away from hers.

“Mulder, check it out,” she says, turning to him sharply. His head snaps to the side. His pupils aren’t the same size anyway, but right now he looks positively feral. 

“What,” he croaks. His mouth hangs open a touch longer than necessary.

“The second victim, the bike mechanic,” she says and points with two manicured fingers, “his ear was pierced.”

Mulder’s acting like he’s drugged and she is happy they’re alone in here. The office is her little torture chamber. He’s had it coming to him all day, after that stunt he pulled earlier, driving her crazy with his mouth and pulling away at the last second, licking his lips and muttering about work.

He blinks. “So?”

She leans in closer and rolls her eyes at him. “In the photo from the missing persons report he’s shown with an earring,” she explains, “but here in the crime scene photo there’s no jewelry.”

She turns her chair a quarter turn and leans in ever closer. Her hand brushes across his chest, up his sleeve, dipping briefly into his collar, before pinching his right earlobe lightly. She rolls the tiny bit of scar tissue in his ear between her fingers, revealing the secret of his college rebellion. 

Thinking of twenty-year-old Mulder getting pierced by his girlfriend in a smoky dorm room, it turns her on more than she’d ever admit. The youth that has coursed through the veins in his body, the irresponsibility, the energy, the stamina. She wants it all.

“No earring, Mulder,” she says and strokes his ear. “Where did it go?”

When he doesn’t reply, only blinks at her and shivers, she knows she’s won. “Look over the evidence checklist again,” she says. “I’m going home.”

She rises unsteadily, slips into her clothes, and leaves, knowing that it won’t be long before he’s at her door with a grin, an argument, and a long weekend ahead of them.


	18. 1013 Productions

Mulder wanted two things for his 55th birthday: a green juice and a barefoot walk on the beach. How convenient, then, that the two of them (a little battered, a little weary… and more excited than ever) found themselves in Los Angeles on an unseasonably warm 10/13/16.

Scully slung her suit jacket over her arm and slipped on a pair of sunglasses. He looked at her, his own eyes unprotected, and saw nothing but the sun. How fitting, since she was it.

They walked west, sipping their pretentious creations, loose limbed and carefree for an hour between meetings. He couldn’t wait to get out of his Maglis, to feel the Pacific and its fine milled sand under his feet. Last time they were here was almost seventeen years ago. It had been a drunken night.

Scully glided next to him on towering heels, and he knew from recent experience that she was softer, fitter and tighter than any of these exercise obsessed youth, chiseled in all the right places.

The two of them stood at a red light like heavy history texts, revised editions of themselves with new dust jackets and badges in their pockets like endorsement blurbs.

She slurped the last of her beet lemon detox elixir noisily and he saw her beautiful mischievous smile framed by crows feet and life behind the shades.

Ahead of them, two figures emerged from a store front door, carrying folders (just like they were) but dressed casually, all cargo pants and flowy florals. The man’s hair looked like Mulder’s own had last year, but without that sad coat of futility and depression. Next to his hair doppelgänger, a small blonde traipsed clumsily on clompy wedge sandals. She wore a sarong. This was California.

“Hey Scully,” he said, “check it out. I think that’s us.”

Scully chewed her straw and let her eyes track the two strangers as they crossed the street.

“Hm,” she said. “I think you’re taller than that.”

“Do you like her shoes?” What an inane question, Mulder. He sipped his drink thoughtfully.

“They’re not me, exactly, are they?”

He looked her straight in the eye. “They could be.”

“Did you put in to transfer us out here? Because I want a beach house if so. This sun is killing my skin.”

He returned her smile, squinting against the optimistic, improbable rays. One day. Maybe one day.

“Oh hey,” he exclaimed and stopped in front of the door the pair had come out of.

“Hm?” She seemed distracted by some bags artfully displayed in a high end boutique window.

He tossed his juice cup into a trash can. “I think they’re having a surprise party for me in here, let’s check it out.”

He held open the door for her, and together they entered the office of the oddly named 1013 Productions.

The beach could wait. This was a case for sleuths of their caliber.


	19. Learning and Memory

The first few months of the new millennium - she’ll allow it because nobody likes a math geek - are heady, intellectual days for Scully.

She learns. Learns the perfect angle to tilt her head, tipping her face up to kiss him. Learns the rustling of sheets at 3am, sounds her apartment has never known. She learns how to spend more than eight hours a day with another person and discovers that the secret, all along, was to change up the scenery.

They move from the office to the car to a convenience store, onward to the best pizza place and then straight into the shower, then into bed.

It is improbable, but somehow it works.

They say that wisdom resides where learning and memory meet.

Perhaps that is exactly why it works, this brand new discovery they’re making together. Because of memory.

She learns everything about him and isn’t afraid, because she remembers. Every moment reveals itself like a tarot card. She already knows how to read, to interpret, this impossible reality.

When his hands mold her, manipulate her flesh, she remembers his finger on a trigger, the oily heft of a revolver at his own temple, then pointing at her.

When he looks at her with that aching tenderness, as her heart works overtime to stop racing and her body quakes, she remembers him catching her as her body crumbled from fear, in disbelief that she was alive, not dismembered and staged like a puppet.

When his face disappears between her legs, and her job is to balance on top of the desk while he works - they’re good at team work, he brings the lingual dexterity and she, the eager slip of her body - she remembers: laughter like she’s never laughed before or since, into a lunatic’s eyes that coaxed and beckoned, knee deep in mud in the Oregon night.

In May, she looks at him and sees right through time. There’s a lot of learning to do, a lot of memories to make.

They get on a plane together. She’ll tell him when they come home.


	20. Makeshift Solutions

Every suitcase tells a story. It’s a story of purpose and planning, of a journey shared.

Two duffel bags in the trunk means they’re planning to be gone only a day or two. Anything larger, and it’s anyone’s guess how long it’ll take to wrap the case. Dry cleaning isn’t as reliable in many parts of the country as in white collar DC, so they need to pack accordingly.

When Scully’s bag seems outsized for the journey, say, if she brings a large wheelie case to New York, or to Pittsburgh, Mulder knows what’s up: she doesn’t trust the weather and overpacks as a measure of control. Lined pants, the lined jacket, her terry cloth robe taking up valuable real estate. Once, he saw her kelly green knit hat with a pom pom hidden beneath severe sweaters.

It’s October. The Cleveland PD has managed to destroy several days worth of important sleuthing. They let Buddy, the K-9 officer, up on the table where Scully had meticulously arranged the shards of… something, found around Mrs. Williams’ body.

“Snafu,” Scully mutters in the debriefing.

“Oh yeah, fubar,” Mulder replies and pats her hip discreetly over her heavy coat.

Of course there is a freak snowstorm. Of course Scully has underpacked. The one time–

He finds her in her room, working late, wrapped up in her favorite fluffy robe, downy like a chick. She’s eaten a pint of soup. She looks pissed off.

“You okay?” he asks, careful with the soothing voice. He always imagines his voice stroking her hair, not ruffling, but calming.

“Still cold,” she murmurs, fingers flexing impatiently as she types on her laptop. “I didn’t bring gloves,” she says.

“Hang on,” he says and disappears back to his room.

He reemerges with supplies: an ancient Hard Rock Cafe sweatshirt and a pocket knife. He cuts a small thumbhole along the seam of one sleeve, well above the cuff, and then the other. Another slit, perpendicular to the first. Voilà!

Her puzzled face only makes him prouder.

After some coaxing, she agrees to put on the sweatshirt, and then she understands. She threads her thumbs through the small thumb holes, and the rest of her fingers through the horizontal ones.

“I gotta give it to you, MacGyver,” she says and inspects her makeshift fingerless gloves, wiggles her fingers and smiles.

The clattering of her fingers on the keys matches his fluttering heartbeat. He vows to always remember this moment.


	21. Quicksilver

A coin has two faces, and so does Scully. Her daytime self is honed to a sharp point, but if you know how to look, you can see the flowing magma of her nighttime self under the surface. This, though, this looks like post-release Scully in the pre-dawn haze, asleep, blissful quicksilver pooled among the sheets.  
They are alone in an anonymous room, under a whirring fan, and it feels as much like home as anything. He watches her closed eyelids and smiles at the freckles on her nose.

Two days ago he’d given her cheesy eskimo kisses and told her how the California sun and the California wine suited her, put some color in her cheeks. In the dim light of this room, her face lies mirror-like, still. She glows like a silver dollar in the moonlight.

“Sir,” one of the night shift techs says quietly behind him. “It’s been half an hour.”

“It’s her,” he says. The action is final. It’s what they asked him here for. 

He smooths her hair, like she would do herself before it became his job, in their clandestine bed. He memorizes the gossamer of her temple with his lips, turns and floats out through the frosted glass door. He tugs at his tie as he walks away, tightening it, and wishes he could keep going past the point of resistance from his own cruelly living body.


End file.
